http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C01%5C14%5Cstory_14-1-2008_pg12_1KARACHI:
The City District Government Karachi (CDGK) has inked an agreement with a
Malaysian firm that will invest $130 million for the installation of a
waste-to-energy project which will produce 50MW of electricity.

A Letter
of Intent (LoI) for the project was signed Sunday night at a local hotel by EDO
Municipal Services Masood Alam and Managing Director Abaseen International (Pvt)
Limited Omer Malik in a ceremony that was attended by City Nazim Mustafa Kamal,
DCO Karachi Javed Hanif, EDOs and other officials.

�This will be the
first plant in Karachi that would use the plasma gasification technology, which
is being used in the energy sector worldwide to generate electricity from
municipal waste. We will facilitate the Malaysian firm in allocation of land and
provision of unsorted municipal solid waste for the plant, and the rest would be
their responsibility,� Kamal said. He said that they had been working on the
project for the last 18 months and it will help mitigate the ongoing power
crisis and maintain the city�s cleanliness as the CDGK would obtain a share from
the Carbon Crediting.

Omer Malik told Daily Times that the plant will be
installed on 25 acres of land in Korangi and the agreement to finalize the
project will be signed within the next 30 days. �Plasma gasification has been
used in Malaysia and Karachi will be the second location where electricity will
be produced from municipal waste.� He mentioned that the project is based on a
Build-Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis for a concession period of 25 years and
that they will get 15 percent of the profit from energy sale while the rest
would go to the KESC.

Responding to a question, he said that the project
was environment friendly as the municipal waste will be utilized to produce
electricity and its residue could be used as slabs for flooring.

THIS VERSION
OF THE TECHNOLOGY IS A RELIC AND IS OBSOLETE AND INEFFICIENT BEFORE IT
LEAVES THE DRAWING BOARD